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Ronan Lyons, Daft's in-house economist, commenting on the latest Daft research on the Irish property market.

Year-on-year inflation in rents nationwide eased in the final three months
2014, according to the latest quarterly Rental Report by Daft.ie.

The national average rent between October and December was just under
€950, that's 9.7% higher than last year. However, this is down from a
10.8% annual increase in the second and third quarters and marks the first
time since mid-2009 that rental inflation has eased.

This national trend is being driven by a moderation in Dublin's rental
inflation, which has eased from 16.5% in April to below 10% by January.

In the other city centres, rents continue to rise but at a slightly slower
pace. In Cork city, rents are 7.3% higher than last year. In Galway they
are 7% higher, Limerick has seen a 6.2% rise while in Waterford city rental
inflation was at 5.1% in the final three months of 2014.

Offsetting the easing in rental inflation in Ireland's urban centres has
been more rapid inflation, in particular in Dublin's commuter counties.
Rents across the four commuter counties were 14.1% higher than a year
previously in late 2014 - the first time in this cycle that inflation has
been slower in Dublin than in its commuter counties.

Commenting on the report, Ronan Lyons, economist at TCD and author of the
Daft Report, said: “The slow-down in rental inflation in Dublin at a time
when new listings are sluggish suggests that a limit to affordability has
been reached there. Over the last 12 months, availability has stabilised
in Dublin at very low levels, while it has tightened further in the Commuter
Counties. The underlying lack of construction in a city growing by roughly
10,000 new families every year has created a new generation of commuter,
one driven not by preference for green space but by the hard maths of
affordability.”